Angelo, Here is a shortened version of the function: def splitrecord(stringRec): theRec = string.split(stringRec, ',') name = theRec[14][1:] surname = theRec[15][0:len(theRec[15])-1] theRec[14] = "%s, %s" % (name, surname) del(theRec[15]) return theRec ---- Byron